This month we are promoting IT Training at St George’s Library. Fiona Graham is our IT Training Manager who has over 15 years of experience in Microsoft Office training at St George’s, University of London, also covering Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education (joint with Kingston), and St George’s Hospital.
We’ve put a few questions to Fiona about how she helps users at St George’s.
Q. Fiona, tell us about examples of how you can help users at St George’s?
I can help users, students, teaching staff, admin staff, NHS staff, with anything related to using Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Access, Projects, OneNote and Outlook. I run training sessions on Microsoft Office for staff and students at beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. I also offer 1-2-1 training and run a twice-weekly drop-in clinic [details below].
What I help people with varies from day to day. I’ve helped several staff members working in Student Registry. One staff member who maintain spreadsheets with student information, wanted the quickest and easiest way to produce some reports with charts, and to use that information collected in a PowerPoint presentation. I demonstrated pivot tables and showed them how to link their data to PowerPoint. I also showed them how to tidy up the data, add drop down lists for consistent data input, and how to auto-update reports and charts by refreshing data in pivot tables. This meant they did not have to keep creating new tables, saving them time in the long term. That’s just one example of what I can do.
Q. What do users mostly ask for help with?
To mention a few of the queries that I get the most, they are:
- How to find duplicates in Excel
- Page numbering not in sequence
- How to get different Headers & Footers on landscapes pages
- Word – how to Mail merge with Excel
- Outlook – how to use Quick Steps
- Access – how to query data in tables
- Excel – Creating Gantt chart
I deliver training that cover these queries and more, users can also see me at my Drop-in Clinic if they have a quick question they want to ask, or arrange to meet me at my desk or their own desk. I’m always happy to help.
Q. What is the biggest satisfaction that you get from your job?
The biggest satisfaction that I get is when I get to help students with their dissertation or thesis. I sometimes get distressed students coming to me, they’ve got their content, but they just can’t get the format or layout right; the page numbers aren’t in the right order, they don’t know how put in different headers and footers for different chapters, or don’t know how to make specific pages a different orientation to fit in an image or a chart, or are not sure how to generate an automatic contents page. With my expertise, I help the students solve all these issues. Later on, when I bump into them again and they tell me ‘I may not have passed if it wasn’t for your help’, that makes it all worthwhile.
***
Many thanks to Fiona for taking the time to answers these questions. Fiona not only helps with problem solving Office Application issues, she also offers training in ECDL, a world-wide recognised IT user qualification, as well as offering online MS Office training materials.
Below are extracts from some of the testimonials from staff and students.
Testimonials
“The tremendous help I received from you, is invaluable. Your kindness, patience help to remove the stress out of the work.”
“I don't know if you realise you are an excellent teacher, remaining calm even when I got flustered. To sum it up all, u know your stuff !!!!!!!”
Leonie Campbell
Kingston Student (dissertation)
“I asked for Fiona’s help in adapting an Excel spreadsheet to fit a certain size page... I found Fiona’s help most useful, her manner was professional and patient. I left the session feeling I could approach Fiona again with any help I needed with IT issues.”
Trevor Ewart McIlree
SGUL Site Services Supervisor
“Fiona worked with us to support MSW [Masters in Social Work] students to attain ECDL… Fiona, not only delivered teaching sessions but equally effectively managed students’ anxieties for whom IT skills was a very new thing”
Wilson Muleya
Associate Professor
MSW Course Director
Deputy Head of School of Social Work and Social Care
“Its official* …. FIONA GRAHAM offers top class student support to MResCP [Master of Research in Clinical Practice] students and is in their words ‘utterly brilliant’ !!! * *student evaluations from cohort 4. Well done Fiona.
Shame you were not there to hear all they said about your abilities and kindness it seems you pull out all the stops for them … but of course we all know you’re great .”
Dr Cheryl Whiting EdD, MSc, DCR, SFHEA
Associate Professor
Course Director for MResCP
Lecturer in Radiography
Find out more:
More information available on the Library Training Pages or contact Fiona Graham directly:
Phone: 020 8725 5662 (ext. 5662)
Email: ITtraining@sgul.ac.uk
Library, 1st Floor Hunter Wing
MS Office Drop-in Clinic in the Library Foyer
Monday 11am – 1pm
Friday 11am – 1pm
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